The most liberal candidate is your second choice. That says something.
No, Rudy Giuliani is my second choice, behind Fred Thompson. The most important issues to me are lowering taxes, cutting spending, decreasing regulation, nominating strict constructionists to the Supreme Court and having a strong national defense, including winning in Iraq. On those issues, of the 5 leading candidates, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani are the most conservative and thus my favorites. While I know that some would expect Rudy to be liberal in appointing judges because he is pro-choice, I believe he’s likely to be the strongest on judges given the role that Theodore Olson has played in supporting Rudy (not surprising considering his wife died on 9/11).
My tiebreaker between Thompson and Giuliani is gun control, which Thompson (and I) oppose and which Giuliani has supported in the past, even if he’s improved his position somewhat of late.
The most liberal candidate in my view of the leading 5 is easily Mike Huckabee with his past support of tax increases, rapid spending increases in Arkansas, support for increased regulation such as the national smoking ban and his bizarre liberal comments about Bush’s foreign policy.
The next most liberal is easily John McCain, based upon his opposition to the Bush tax cuts (with nice class warfare arguments justifying the position), and his support for more spending, more regulation, and higher taxes to go along with his environmental agenda. I also believe, given that he was largely responsible for blocking Republicans from getting rid of the filibuster on judicial nominees, that he will likely appoint “moderates” to be judges so as to avoid the embarrassment of having his own nominees filibustered.